Cee the Artiste

What goes on in your kids’ playroom when you’re not looking? The good folks at Dropcam – a state-of-the-art video baby monitor – posed this question to me for their Tales From the Playroom series and I summoned up the courage to answer it. Such a sobering moment when you realize that the last thing on your little angel’s mind when she’s left alone in her bedroom is reading War and Peace. But as we know, fear is as natural to parenthood as Cheerios, so I threw my hat in the ring.

Y’know, I think I have fairly decent taste when it comes to home decor. My family’s apartment will never make it onto the pages of Better Homes and Gardens much less go viral on Pinterest, but when I take the time to tidy the place up, it looks decidedly not horrible. There is a kinda-sorta teal color motif going on in our bedroom*, we have some swanky throw pillows adorning our sofa that I got on clearance at a thrift store, and our hand-me-down vintage kitchen table and side tables hearken back to more modular Mad Men days if Don Draper never had someone following him around with a coaster.

*I mean, our bedspread is teal; that qualifies it as a motif, right? Right.

All things considered, I’ve made our place up. You may not even notice the – ahem – remembrances of grape juices past on our rugs and sofas. The artwork we’ve hung on the walls makes up for the stains we started noticing once Cee hit the toddler years. And hey, I’m willing to write off the coffee splatters she got on the wall (don’t ask) as Pollock-esque. Whatever gets me through the day.

But clearly, all the work I’ve put into making our home the kind of place that is moderately pleasant to look at was lost on Cee. To her, it lacked that certain je ne sais quoithat would really make the colors in the drapes pop. One morning last week, I gave her some paper and colored pencils and told her to go to town with them, but the true artist takes inspiration from the world around her and looks beyond the obvious. Our living room wall spoke more to her than recycled copier paper, so while I was indulging myself with the laundry in my bedroom, she created a mural á la Diego Rivera.

It’s quite an improvement on the aesthetic I had going, no?

I apologize for the poor quality of this photograph. We have not yet installed gallery lighting in our apartment.

I can tell that my daughter surely has a career in art ahead of her because she did not spare a square inch for her masterpiece. She covered the entire wall with circles and lines and used a respectable variety of colors. I interpreted her work as a critique on the socioeconomical implications of worldwide oil dependency. However, when I asked her what she had tried to convey with her mural, she said it was ducks.

Here is the artist posing with her work.And a lemon. There’s a lemon too.

In the grand tradition of artists who are not recognized as genius in their own time, though, her father and I decided that the mural needed to be taken down the next day. It turns out that I am more attached to the Spartan clean-wall look than I had thought, and her mural – while well-intentioned – simply clashed with what I had going.

Perhaps the Magic Eraser took with it the early work of a genius, but this is an apartment and we’re very keen on collecting our security deposit once we move out.

I get ducks from that mural. I see the plight of the domestic duck as it struggles to form an identity in a pond of wild ducks. Wow. Makes me stop and think. Well done, Cee!

Girl-child went through a phase where she marked everything with an “X.” We didn’t find all of them until we sold the house and had to paint over them. Two or three coats of paint were required to cover them up.

Ok, so were you really so creative in your initial reaction to her impromptu mural when you first saw it? Regardless, I love the perspective and I am sure you are one of the coolest moms ever! Great laugh! Thanks!

Love it, and been there – but with felt tip pens – the washable ones, but they don’t wash off the walls – just create a smear in a slightly paler shade. In defence of your little one she doesn’t look as though she’d been caught red-handed. Mine hid her works of art behind the curtains and blamed then on her little one year old sister, even though she’d placed them a good foot above her height, lol ;-)

Your interpretations clearly weren’t THAT far apart. Remember that “Saved by the Bell” episode where Bayside lets an oil company drill on their campus, but then there is a giant spill and Becky the duck gets covered with oil and dies? And then Zack realizes all the big oil money isn’t as important as the natural life around them? It’s deep. Your living room wall was a homage to the greatest Saturday morning dramadey of all time.

Also, I’m not sure if I am proud or ashamed to admit I did not have to look up one iota of that reference…including that the duck’s name was Becky. That all lives in my brain, and in a spot I can readily and quickly access. It’s a blessing and a curse.

I love this! While many parents would have had ten heart attacks, you said screw that and grabbed your camera for a super cute photo shoot. Plus, you found inspiration for a witty blog post. Well done! By the way, isn’t that Magic Eraser a parents best friend?? Magic, indeed.

You’re a great deal more patient than most… My niece once decided that the thermostat needed a dash of green Sharpie to complete it’s thermostat-y look and her mother just about lost it when she found out.

Lovely to start documenting the early works, as they are often the most sought-after by collectors down the line. Be careful tho, publishing her pictures on the web leaves it wide-open for plagiaristic opportunism It’s fairly common for artists’ works to be downloaded and printed in far-away lands such as Dubai, then sold as “printed” canvases, cards, book covers, and couch fabric. You have been warned.

Don’t you just love it!? Man, two days after I bought my son a new bedspread for his big boy bed, he took a permanent marker to it. I even did a post once about how I should charge admission to my home as an art gallery with all the “artwork” I had displayed on every surface. I feel your pain friend. Even my 5 year old does this kind of stuff from time to time and tells me he “forgot” what the rule was. So frustrating! Here’s the link if you want to see the masterpieces from MY household. ;) http://www.perfectionpending.net/2013/11/01/i-should-be-charging-admission/

My kids, who are superior in every way, never wrote on the walls without permisson. My daughter’s best friend, however, wrote on OUR walls in ballpoint/gel pen ink. I understand the desire to make one’s mark, but why would you do it on someone else’s wall? Oh, unless your mother is the kind who disinfects the sliding glass door track with Tilex.

When you move into a place you own, you can let the kids go to town on the walls you intend to paint. And when you do paint (I can’t keep from the unsolicited advice thing, can I?), you can give her a bucket of water and her own brush.

What a talented little artist! And I love it how you remind us at the beginning of the post that pictures going viral on Pinterest is a greater mark of fame nowadays than a two-page spread in Better Homes and Gardens. The things we aspire to that our parents never had to stress about…

P.S. My favorite story ever came from an Aussie friend of mine. She walked into her son’s room one day (he was about 3, maybe younger) and found him cutting holes (yes, he had somehow gotten hold of scissors) in his pillow case. When he looked up and saw her, he immediately cried, “I didn’t do it!” scissors in hand not-withstanding. Gotta love it.

Ahaha, this was great! Bean has already drawn on the wall in the hallways, but I have yet to take it off. It’s tucked out of the way so…I’m the only one enjoying it currently. Also, if you like kid art so much, I’d love if you entered my 100 likes give away (inspired by you!) – the prize is a my little pony comic with a cover drawn by me and colored by Bean. ;) You could hang it near C’s next mural (because there will be more). The picture with the lemon is so so precious, and so emo-artist. :P

Hahaha this was so good. I kept finding new “favorite lines” in it but I think I settled on this: “I interpreted her work as a critique on the socioeconomical implications of worldwide oil dependency. However, when I asked her what she had tried to convey with her mural, she said it was ducks.”

I think the best thing ever might be her pet lemon. I hope it’s a plastic lemon. Otherwise, she’s going to get a lesson in death soon when Mr. Lemon starts to get that not-so-fresh smell.

I have a LOT of white walls, and I was informed it doesn’t matter what I do to them, because “we’re just going to paint over them when you move out, so do what you want.” Cee is welcome to come make me a mural. MANY murals. The people around here don’t seem to care, and my design aesthetic is…”clean up the mess sometimes, maybe, if you’re not too busy.”